Performance Rights Act? the winner is . . . Lady Gaga!

“Bad Romance,” by Lady Gaga, would bring in over $446,000 a year if the Performance Rights Act was enacted by Congress, according to a new assessment by the Government Accountability Office. The proposed legislation would require broadcast radio stations to pay a royalties to performers as well as copyright holders.

“As the primary musician on this sound recording, Lady Gaga would receive 45 percent of the total royalty, almost $201,000,” the GAO estimates, if the tithe came in at 2.35 percent. ” The copyright holder would earn 50 percent, or over $223,000, and the background musicians and performers would share 5 percent, over $22,000.”

But most musicians wouldn’t make nearly that sum. The GAO estimates that 56 percent of performers would take in $100 or less per year. Less than 6 percent of artists would receive $10,000 or more per year in royalties from airplay in the top 10 markets—these generate about 21 percent of industry revenues.

Still, many artists would make between $500 to $100,000 a year. Here’s the complete breakdown of the GAO’s estimate:

Royalty range

Percentage of total

musicians and performers

Less than $10

21%

$10-49

26%

$50-99

9%

$100-499

17%

$500-999

6%

$1,000-9,999

16%

$10,000-99,999

5%

$100,000 or more

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About Matthew Lasar

Matthew Lasar is a co-founder of Radio Survivor and its business manager. He is the author of Radio 2.0: Uploading the First Broadcast Medium (http://tinyurl.com/jr8uknk) and teaches history at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Likes: deejays, classical music, Disco, postpunk, cats, free school lunches. Dislikes: money, ideologies, claims that technology will fix everything. Follow him on twitter at @matthewlasar.